Christian influences on the Islamic world

The Pew Forum study finds that Indonesia (21.1 million) has the largest Christian population in the Muslim world, followed by Egypt, Chad and Kazakhstan.

[13] In explicating the origin of the Islamic salat, academics state that it was influenced by the religions prevalent in the Middle East during the time of Muhammad, such as Christianity and Judaism.

Such men were a familiar sight on all caravan routes of Arabia.The Nestorian Christians were puritanical and opposed to showing images of Jesus and the cross.

[14] Justin Paul Hienz regards these as clear examples of syncretism in which Judaism influenced religious practice in Islam.

[14] According to historian Philip Jenkins, Ramadan comes "from the strict Lenten discipline of the Syrian Churches", a postulation corroborated by other scholars, such as the theologian Paul-Gordon Chandler.

This coincides with research showing that the earliest mosques faced not Mecca but Petra in modern-day southern Jordan, where Syriac was spoken.

Quranic scholar Erwin Gräf declares that the Qur’an, “according to the etymological meaning of the word, is originally and really a liturgical text designed for cultic recitation and also actually used in the private and public service.

After the fall of Constantinople, the Ottomans converted a major basilica, Hagia Sophia, to a mosque and incorporated Byzantine architectural elements into their own work, such as domes.

Persian Historian Ibn al-Faqih points out that minarets of the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus were originally watch towers in the Church of St. John the Baptist.

Muslim rulers endeavored to copy in their mosques the exterior architectural features of Christian churches with the conscious intention of dwarfing and humiliating them.

[41] Art historian Oleg Grabar explains the impact that the Christian Roman Empire of the Greeks had on the early muslims:[42] Byzantine art provided the new culture with a vocabulary and the rudiments of a grammar.… The Muslims turned again and again to the wellspring of Byzantium.… At one time he [Mu’awiyah, then governor of Syria—he would become the future first Umayyad caliph (ruled 661–680)] was upbraided by Caliph Umar for having adopted the pagan ways of the Caesars.… Mu’awiyah answered that Damascus was full of Greeks and that none of them would believe in his power if he did not behave and look like an emperor.… The early Muslims never fully understood Byzantine art, but circumstances having forced it on them, they could not but be impressed by its existence.The high value placed on Byzantine Brocades in the Islamic world is attested to in al-Tha'alibi's book "Laṭāʼif al-maʻārif" in which Abu Dulaf al-Khazraji prays for godsends, including Byzantine Brocades.

[43] According to the scholar Irfan Shahid, sources point to the influence of the Christian Byzantines and Zoroastrian Persians in the development of music in Arabia.

Egyptian priest and philosopher Jurj (or George) Shihatah Qanawati mentions over sixty translators, all of whom were Christians except one jew and one Sabaean.

[52] The Nestorian Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq, who worked as a writer and a teacher in the House of Wisdom,[53][54] was one of the most influential translators of Greek medical and scientific treatises of his day.

The Crusaders introduced to the muslims key features from thicker and higher concentric walls to posterns, vaulted chambers in the "safe-zones," and massive storage to withstand lengthy sieges.

[6][7] When Arabs and Islam arrived in the levant and Mesopotamia, they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions.

[68] It was a Christian scholar and Bishop from Nisibis named Severus Sebokht who was the first to describe and incorporate indian mathematical symbols in the mid 7th century, which were then adopted into Islamic culture and are now known as the Arabic numerals.

His was the first treatise on ophthalmology, but he was soon surpassed in this field by his famous pupil, Hunayn ibn Ishaq (aka Johannitius), whom some regard as the father of Arab medicine.

Razi, the physician of genius known in medieval Europe as Rhazes, profited greatly from the works started by Hunayn ibn Ishaq.

[79][80][81][82] For 200 years the Bukhtishu family, Assyrian Christians, were the physicians to the Caliphs of Baghdad and they founded the great medical school at Gundeshapur in Iran.

A large percentage of the population were Nestorian Christians, all of whom were exiled by the Byzantine Emperor Zeno (c. 425–491) in accordance with the doctrines of the Trinity which was established in the first Council of Nicea.

Under the rule of Khosrau I, refuge was granted to the Greek, and the Nestorian Christian philosophers including the scholars of the Persian School of Edessa (Urfa).

[89] An author observed that “The fourth Umayyad Caliph, Marwan I, ordered the translation … of the famous medical treatise of Aaron of Alexandria.

Ibn Bakhtishu, a Nestorian christian physician in Baghdad established the first hospital in the islamic world under the orders of Harun al rashid, where his son (d. 801) became the leading practitioner.

[103] According to Ibn Khaldun, the famous classic Arabic poetic form called muwassaha (or Moachaha) was invented in the ninth century by a poet of Christian dhimmi ancestry named Muccadam de Cabra.

"The Persian poet Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami claimed that his rapidly failing vision was saved “with the aid of Frankish glasses.”[109] The one valuable item, sought for in Europe, which Iran possessed and which could bring in silver in sufficient quantities was silk, which was produced in the northern provinces, along the Caspian coastline.

[112][113] They were even hired by wealthy Persian merchants to travel to Europe when they wanted to create commercial bases there, and the Armenians eventually established themselves in cities like Bursa, Aleppo, Venice, Livorno, Marseilles and Amsterdam.

[121] The roots of Greek ascendancy can be traced to the need of the Ottomans for skilled and educated negotiators as the power of their empire declined and they were compelled to rely on treaties more than the force of arms.

As a result, the so−called Phanariotes, Greek and Hellenized families mostly native to Constantinople, came to occupy high posts of secretaries and interpreters to Ottoman officials and officers.

The suicide bomber Jules Jammal, a Syrian military officer who blew himself up while ramming a French ship, was also an Arab Christian.